Philosophy (Witt) and Communications (Lillie)

A particular passage of interest from the assigned reading was when Aristotle talks about the subject of pleasure as a type of activity.

The context of the passage starts off with Aristotle discussing the topic of pleasures being different species. Aristotle continues by relating this to the fact that all things including, humans, trees, or animals, all have different types of pleasures depending on if they are a natural thing or an artifact. He then relates this to the activities of things and how it differs among species, relating pleasure to an activity that it completes. Aristotle’s continues by stating how pleasure increases activity as well, since activity is different depending on species Aristotle says that what is proper to them also differs among different species. He proceeds by saying that these circumstances are the same when it comes to us doing two activities at once where the more pleasant activity completely overpowers the other one.

This particular passage caught my attention, because it was interesting to see how Aristotle linked the thought of pleasure with activity as a whole and stated how it is different depending on the species. It was also interesting to read how Aristotle proved how the more pleasant activity would completely cancel the other one out if we were doing two different activities at once.